KRASNODAR, Russia, July 24, (IslamOnline.net) - The United States has agreed to grant citizenship to 7,000 Ahiska Muslims who will be settled in Pennsylvania, reported a Russian newspaper on Friday, July 23.

The first 11-strong batch of the Ahiska Muslims, living in the Russian province of Krasnodar, left for Geneva on Thursday, July 22, before flying to Philadelphia, reported Novie Izvestia.

It added that the Muslims would be housed near the grand mosque in Philadelphia.

The paper recalled that Krasnodar governor Alexander Tkachev was notified of the American decision on February 15.

Izvestia said the Russian government does not treat Ahiska Muslims as citizens and has not therefore given them passports or IDs.

An official in Krasnodar administration had told Interfax on Tuesday, July 20, that of the 11,999 Ahiska Muslims living in the region, 4,943 have received Russian citizenship and 744 have embarked on Russian naturalization procedures.

He added that more than 5,000 others have expressed a desire to emigrate to the United States.

Earlier, Chingiz Neiman-zade, chairman of Vatan, a Meskheti Turks association based in Georgia, said the United States had offered to accept the Ahiska Muslims living in Krasnodar as immigrants.

"On February 16, the International Migration Organization began an information program in Krasnodar to explain the terms for the resettlement of the Ahiska Muslims in the U.S.," he told Chicago Tribune on Thursday, July 22.

"The immigrants will be provided with housing and furniture, they will be helped to learn the English language and to complete formalities needed for residence in the US, which is especially important, and have been promised life-long welfare allowances for pensioners and the disabled."

Happiness

Ahiska Muslims were happy with the American offer.

"This decision marks a great change in our life", said Tepeshon Swanidze, leader of the Ahiska Muslim community in Russia.

"We thank the US administration for its humanitarian decision", he added.

Ahiska Muslims , originally hailing from Anatolia, were exiled from their homeland after Russia seized the region of Ahiska following its 1828-1829 war with the Ottoman Empire.

Many Ahiska Muslims were forced to seek refugee in Erzurum in eastern Turkey after being persecuted by the Russian Cesar for supporting the Ottoman Empire.

Facing a similar fate under the notorious Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, Ahiska Muslims fled to Uzbekistan in 1944.

One year later, they went to Azerbaijan where they currently reside.

Turkish and Azeri parliamentarians had recently appealed for an international intervention to pressure the Georgian government into allowing the return of Ahiska Muslims.

The clown who wrote this probably meant Visas. You get to become a citizen after 5 years legal residence last time I looked. Pennsylvania is the right choice, they can join the Amish, the Hutterites and the Pennsylvania Dutch and other groups that after more than 100 years have still to assimilate to the rest of the country. Isn't multi-culturalism great?

"The immigrants will be provided with housing and furniture, they will be helped to learn the English language and to complete formalities needed for residence in the US, which is especially important, and have been promised life-long welfare allowances for pensioners and the disabled."

Listen, I'm not trying to be confrontational. It's just that I don' give this story any credibility at all.

If 10,000 new Muslims were about to be settled in Philadelphia we'd have a new American Revolution on our hands in the City of Brotherly Love. Yet, there has not been even a whisper of this in Philadelphia, or for that matter, in any American newspaper.

30
posted on 07/25/2004 12:19:47 AM PDT
by John Valentine
("The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein)

Maybe Philadelphians would sleep right through an invasion of 10,000 new Muslims. I doubt it, though.

It's just that for news about the United States, I don't turn to Novie Izvestia, and I'd suggest, very nicely, that you shouldn't either.

By the way, from you handle I'd guess that you haave a Mac G4. I am typing this on my brand new G5... it's fantastic. My first new Mac in 10 years.

As for students from Islamic countries learning to fly in our flight schools... I'm not sure of your point. If it is that they should not be allowed to learn to fly planes, well, that just isn't going to work. There are flight schools all over the world willing to teach Muslims to fly.

I'd be pretty much surprised if we are teaching any of them how to take off but not how to land any more. And I suspect they are better checked out than pre-911. But I can't see how a total ban would help.

34
posted on 07/25/2004 12:37:02 AM PDT
by John Valentine
("The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein)

"The immigrants will be provided with housing and furniture, they will be helped to learn the English language and to complete formalities needed for residence in the US, which is especially important, and have been promised life-long welfare allowances for pensioners and the disabled."

49
posted on 07/25/2004 5:07:14 AM PDT
by dennisw
(Once is Happenstance. Twice is Coincidence. The third time is Enemy action. - Ian Fleming)

"The immigrants will be provided with housing and furniture, they will be helped to learn the English language and to complete formalities needed for residence in the US, which is especially important, and have been promised life-long welfare allowances for pensioners and the disabled."

50
posted on 07/25/2004 5:07:26 AM PDT
by dennisw
(Once is Happenstance. Twice is Coincidence. The third time is Enemy action. - Ian Fleming)

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